


Ride

by Deifire



Category: Blood-Smoke Series - Tanya Huff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-19
Updated: 2006-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1625672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deifire/pseuds/Deifire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Darkest Night's second season begins, Tony Foster and Lee Nicholas try to continue the relationship they began last fall, as the fledgling wizard is also called upon to deal with his new apprentice and a seductive new form of supernatural menace.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Ride

**Author's Note:**

> Written for DV Skitz

 

 

> _
> 
> Cars are girls. --Stephen King
> 
> _

> _
> 
> Some of the girls were boys.  
> The view changes from where you are standing. --Neil Gaiman
> 
> _

**Prelude: Test Run**

"There's a car on the beach," said Ray Richards' fianceé.

"What's that?" said Ray. That was the strangest response he'd ever heard Sharon give to, "I love you, too." He stared at her for a moment, and then followed her gaze. There, right in front of them, was a car sitting on the beach, driver's side door open. His first thought was to wonder how they could have missed it before. They'd been taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather in Vancouver with a romantic stroll along the shoreline, and had admittedly not been paying attention to much else besides each other for past several minutes. Still, he thought they would have noticed someone drive up to the edge of the water. Or had the car been there the whole time? He looked down at the sand under them. Wouldn't it have left tracks of some kind? Then he looked closer at the car itself.

"My God," he muttered, letting go of Sharon's hand and jogging to cover the few meters distance between the car and the couple.

"What is it?" Sharon called out, following behind him.

"This," said Ray, using the proper tone of awe and respect for someone in the presence of something sacred. "Is a 1969 Boss 429 Mustang." He stroked the jade black body. "This is the car I have wanted to own my entire life."

"This is strange," said Sharon. "I wonder who it belongs to."

Ray took a good look at the interior of the Mustang. "No one inside," he reported. No prints in the sand that led away from the open driver's side door, either. The car wasn't running, but it was warm and he could almost feel it vibrate under his hand, could almost hear a low rumble, as though it were purring. He walked around, studying it carefully, and then simply stood back in awe. It was the most beautiful ride he had ever seen in his life. Sharon was saying something that he didn't catch, and he summoned the presence of mind to ask, "What?"

"I said, 'Should we call someone?'" Sharon repeated. Ray shrugged, made his way back to the open door again and, sudden decision reached, climbed in and slid behind the wheel.

"Ray, what do you think you're doing?"

He didn't answer. Truth was, he wasn't quite sure what he thought he was doing. Living a little taste of a dream, maybe. He settled back into the driver's seat of the car he'd always wanted to own, put both hands on the steering wheel, closed his eyes, and pictured himself barreling down the Trans-Canada. It wasn't until Sharon's voice became muffled that he realized the door had shut. He came back to reality. Enough was enough, he thought as he made a move to reach toward the door handle. A move that utterly failed, as both his hands were now stuck fast to the steering wheel. He started to scream when the engine turned over, the car roared to life, and began to roll forward. He was screaming as he felt the impact that must have been the Mustang colliding with Sharon's body and screaming still as the car drove into the water.

But he was silent not very long after that.

* * *

**I. Start Your Engines**

The two investigators found the bodies by the water. The older, blonde man knelt down and checked both throats for a pulse, then shook his head. "I failed them," he said.

His younger, dark-haired companion knelt down beside him and put an arm around his shoulders. "You fought the good fight, Raymond, but even you can't save them all."

The blonde snarled, revealing too-white teeth and a set of long, sharp canines. "I can try, Lee. I will find out who...or what...did this, and I will not rest until I lead this city through the darkest night bored the dawn!"

"And cut!" yelled Peter Hudson, director of _Darkest Night_ , television's highest-rated syndicated vampire detective show. "Okay, Mason. First of all, the line is ' _toward_ the dawn'..."

"I _said_ toward." Mason Reed, the show's vampire detective star, was in a bad mood that was only getting worse the longer the scene was taking. Peter had already had to give him the speech in which he reminded Mason that--the third act of episode fifteen aside--Raymond Dark was a vampire all the time. This, despite Mason's personal preferences, made doing outdoor scenes in the daytime highly problematic.

"Well, from here it sounded like 'bored'," said the director, continuing under his breath. "The line is in the frakking credits, for crying out loud. How hard can it be?" Then, loud enough for the actor to overhear again, "Also, you called Lee by his first name."

"The script says I'm supposed to call him by his first name!"

"The script says Raymond Dark is supposed to call James Taylor Grant by _his_ first name. You said, 'Lee'."

"Okay, okay..." said Mason.

"Alright, let's try it again. And, Mason--believe me, I know we're working with some limitations in the dialog here--but this time maybe try to do it just a little bit less like you're channeling William Shatner doing Scarlett O'Hara."

Trainee Assistant Director Tony Foster flushed at that and shook his head. Not that he'd had anything to do with that or any other particular line of dialogue in the script, but he _did_ have a story credit on it, since the basic premise had actually come from an idea he'd pulled out of his ass back when he'd been making up _Darkest Night_ episodes for fake location scouting as part of an effort to save the world from a Demonic Conversion last fall.

It was the sort of thing that happened when your personal life as a wizard-in-training kept overlapping messily with your day job in television. He'd pitched the idea to Chester Bane, his boss at CB Productions, and had been surprised as anyone that a script that involved Raymond Dark investigating dead aliens and walking tree people was on its way to becoming an actual episode of _Darkest Night_ 's second season. Of course, in the meantime, Frank in the writers' room had been put in charge of fleshing out the story into a full-fledged script, which is why the final version had a lot more car crashes and lines that sounded like they really ought to be prefaced with "As God is my witness..." than Tony had envisioned.

James Taylor Grant, aka Lee Nicholas when he wasn't playing sidekick to a TV vampire, broke character for a brief moment to flash Tony a smile. They'd been trying to get together ever since the actor had gotten back from Australia, where he'd spent the show's hiatus playing the lead in an _Amazons in Space_ movie. Lee found out he'd gotten the part about fifteen minutes after he and Tony had shared their first kiss--well, not technically their first kiss, but the first one under circumstances in which no one's life was being threatened by supernatural forces and no one was pretending anybody involved was straight, so that was the one that counted--and their fledgling relationship had gone on hiatus right along with the show.

It hadn't made sense for Tony to go to Australia. For one thing, he couldn't afford it. For another, he wasn't quite sure Vancouver could afford to lose him. He'd been dealing with the aftereffects of the Demonic Conversion for a long time, and RCMP Constables Elson and Danvers were still calling him up asking for his professional wizardly opinion on some of the weirder reports received by the police.

Besides, much as Tony hated to admit it, he needed the time to learn more about being a wizard. Tony had neither a mentor nor any formal training at this sort of thing, being basically self-taught with the assistance of a laptop left behind by Arra Pelindrake, the senior wizard who'd first outed him as such before returning to her home world. Why, while being basically untrained and making it up as he went along himself, he'd agreed to take on an apprentice, he wasn't sure. Oh, yeah. Because said apprentice was Chester Bane's youngest daughter, and if his boss was hard to refuse, eight-year-old Brianna was nearly impossible. Brianna's mother, CB's second ex-wife, had recently met the man who was now her third husband while doing a PBS miniseries for Black History Month, and the new couple had taken Brianna and her sister Ashley along on their honeymoon tour of Europe, which gave Tony a bit of a reprieve. It wasn't just that he was unsure enough of his own abilities as a wizard to seriously doubt his potential as a teacher, it was the fact that serious power in the hands of spoiled, rarely-controlled-even-by-her-own-parents Brianna Bane would likely lead...well, he had no real idea where it would lead, but his imagination had come up with plenty of worse-case scenarios, a good many of which borrowed heavily from a recent and ill-timed re-watching of the _Star Wars_ prequels.

At any rate, Tony had things he had to do and Lee had a career to consider, so they'd made a mutual decision to leave things as they were, and see how they both felt when Lee returned. And things as they were, as hot as they'd been getting, hadn't been quite...consummated yet.

When Lee stepped off the plane, both men had been happy to learn that neither one of them had any change of plans regarding the continuation of the relationship. Unfortunately, they both also had a number of other plans that couldn't be changed, and Tony surmised they'd managed to see each other all of five minutes, tops, since Lee first set foot back on Canadian soil. Mostly, there'd been trying to launch the second season of _Darkest Night_. Then, the thing that claimed to be a refugee from a dungeon dimension had gone on a small rampage through Burnaby. Then there'd been that incident with Mason and the werecow.

Three nights of time alone had ended with the two of them passing out in each other's arms. Which, while nice and all, had not exactly been the evening according to plan.

Tonight was going to be their fourth try. After they finished the shoot, he and Lee were going back to Lee's apartment, and finally getting some time to themselves.

A drop of moisture fell on his head. Oh great, it looked just as though when Mason was finally going to start cooperating, the weather was going to stop. Lee shot Tony a stricken look as he hit his mark and they prepared to take it from the top one more time. Tony wished he'd had more time to spend studying Arra's files on weather control.

* * *

By some miracle, Peter managed to get the footage he needed about five minutes before the rain came in earnest. Fate was smiling on them and Lee was smiling at him, as he ran over to where Tony was wrestling with a pile of equipment he needed to keep dry.

"So..." Lee began.

"So..." replied Tony.

"Are we still on for tonight?"

Tony smiled. "We'd better be." It had been the day from hell, but nothing was going to ruin it now. He reached toward Lee, pulled him closer, and...

"Tony!!!"

Nothing except that. The scream came from the distance, where Amy, CB Productions' assistant office manager, and Brianna Bane, both under matching Hello Kitty umbrellas, were running up to meet him. Brianna closed the distance first, tackled Tony, and wrapped her arms around his waist. He staggered away from Lee and fought to get his breath back.

Amy reached them next. Tony pointed down at CB's youngest and raised inquisitive eyebrows. "Just got back from Europe this morning," Amy said, sounding slightly out of breath. "Bri's birthday's coming up, and the thing she wanted the very most in the entire world was to spend more time with her father. CB wants me to bring you back to the studio so the two of you can work out how to rearrange your work schedule around Brianna's, you know," here she lowered her voice, "training. And Brianna wanted to see you as soon as she could, so here we are."

"But...but...Lee was my ride," was all Tony's overloaded brain could ultimately come up with.

"Oh, that's okay. We can take my car, and I can give you a ride home later," said Amy. "Oh, and I almost forgot. Jack called for you. Something about a missing persons case he wants you to look into." Jack being RCMP Constable Elson, the Vancouver police force's closest thing to an expert on the paranormal and Amy's current significant other.

Tony sighed, and looked up at Lee. "Rain check?"

"Rain check," Lee said, shaking his head.

The rain, as though it had suddenly decided to join in the scene, began to pour harder.

* * *

"...And Mom and Whatshisname just spend the entire time making goo-goo eyes at each other, and all Ashes can talk about lately is _boooys_ ," Brianna was explaining on the way to Amy's car. She rolled her eyes to emphasize her opinion on the subject. According to Amy, the kid's boundless energy was the result of jet lag combined with a wicked sugar high. "So I said I wanted to spend more time with Dad, and they couldn't say no because it was going to be my birthday, and that's _all_ I was asking for. Well, that and a pony. But really I wanted to spend more time with you, because you said you would teach me, and I couldn't wait any longer to learn how to become a wizard for real. And I'm _sooo_ excited!" Brianna punctuated that last statement by jumping up and down.

Someone had left the doors to a black Mustang open, Tony noted, as they crossed the lot to where Amy was parked. He'd seen the car on the way to the location this morning and the doors had been open then, too. He muttered a few quick syllables to a spell he'd been working on, a variation on Come to Me which directed energy outward. It was a useful trick for when he wanted to open the fridge door, summon a beer to his hand, and close the door again without leaving the couch. He used it now to shut the car doors. Given how long it had been sitting there, the interior was probably wet already, but the thing looked classic and expensive and there was no sense letting it get soaked. He wondered whose car it was. Not Lee's, because he'd ridden to work this morning in the actor's Mercedes SUV. Mouse's, maybe? The cameraman's hobby was restoring cars, and he did have a fondness for old Mustangs, so that was likely.

As Amy tried to herd Brianna into her car, Tony spotted Kate, Mouse's assistant loading something into a van. He held up a finger to let Amy know to wait just a minute, and ran over to help her out.

"I've _got_ it," said Kate, who had never really liked Tony, when he reached her.

Tony backed off, raising his hands in mock surrender. She finished, and looked up, scowling when she realized he was still there. "Hey, I just wanted to ask if that was Mouse's ride," he said, indicating the black Mustang.

"No," she said, jerking a thumb toward the other side of the lot and Mouse's familiar red '63. "Why?"

"It's just that somebody left their doors open," Tony said. "I closed them when I saw it, but..."

"Someone is going to have a fit when they discover the brand new puddle in their front seat," Kate concluded. "Did you want anything else?"

"No, that was it," said Tony, and hurried back to Amy's car.

"Good news is first unit's back in the studio tomorrow," Amy was saying, "and second unit'll working with Daniel and the other stunt driver on some of the car crash stuff."

"Leah?" Tony asked, mentioning the stuntwoman/immortal Demongate who did occasional work on _Darkest Night_. He'd gotten to experience some of her driving firsthand from the passenger seat last fall.

"No, Leah's working on a movie for the Sci-Fi Channel right now. Daniel hired a former NASCAR driver for this one. I promised Jack I'd get an autograph."

"Cool," said Brianna. "I want an autograph, too. Tony, is Lee your boyfriend?"

"Wha...?" Tony managed, stunned by the abrupt change of subject. "Well, he...I mean..."

Brianna just shrugged. "Just as long as you're not talking about boys when you're supposed to be teaching me wizard stuff."

* * *

Kate watched Amy's car pull out of the lot. She'd never really liked Tony Foster, but recognized that in this case he'd been trying to do a good deed. She flagged down Mouse as soon as she saw him. It wasn't his car, but the big man did have an encyclopedic knowledge of the make and model of everything driven by anybody with a connection to _Darkest Night_ , and would definitely recognize the vehicle if it was one of theirs.

"Nope," said Mouse in an absent way when she'd pointed it out. He was staring at the car like she'd just showed him the long lost love of his life. "Don't know anybody who drives a '69 Boss 9, let alone any asshole who'd be that careless with such a fine piece of equipment. That's the most beautiful thing I think I've ever seen."

Kate shrugged. "See you tomorrow, then?"

"Yeah, see ya," said Mouse, looking distracted. He was going to have a closer look at the black Mustang, Kate knew. Despite the fact that it was raining hard now, and Mouse was neither wearing a coat nor carrying an umbrella, he wasn't going to be able to help himself. Tomorrow was going to involve a long discussion of the finer details of the car and Mouse's perceptions of the quality of the restoration, during which she was going to nod along and pretend to understand. Men and cars, she thought, getting into her own vehicle and fumbling for her keys, which she'd absentmindedly dropped back into her bag. She didn't look up when she heard an engine start and when she finally recovered the keys, she noticed both Mouse and the black Mustang were gone. Mouse's own car was still sitting in the lot. He wouldn't, would he? She shook her head. She knew a bit about the cameraman's wild past, but the Mouse of today wasn't the type to go joyriding in someone else's vehicle, even if he'd improbably managed to find the keys inside.

Unless the point was to teach some careless car owner who didn't appreciate a classic a lesson. Now _that_ would be in character for Mouse. He wouldn't hurt the car any more than he'd hurt his own baby, but he might well leave it someplace where it would be safe enough, but far enough away to give the owner an extended period of panic.

She sighed again and started her own engine.

* * *

**II. Green Flag**

"...so, er, in conclusion, with great power comes great responsibility," said Tony. The schedule he had worked out with CB decreed that his entire responsibility for the morning consisted of tutoring Brianna. Lesson one had thus far involved a lecture on the finer points of wizardly ethics cribbed heavily from the works of Stan Lee. It was going about as well as he expected. His pupil was currently chewing on the end of her braid and looking annoyed. "Now wizardry," he began, "is all about energy. And, well, energy..."

"I'm bored!" said Brianna. "When are you going to show me how to do some stuff?"

"Soon," said Tony. "But in order to _do_ wizard stuff, you first have to understand how it works. Otherwise you'll never be able to manage your first spell." Okay, so it wasn't entirely true, but it did put off actually having to try a spell and find out if Brianna had talent. There would be an inevitable explosion of pre-teen emotion if it turned out she didn't, and if she did...he shuddered. Maybe the best plan was to convince Brianna that wizardry was the most boring thing on the planet, so she'd get tired of the whole thing and find another hobby.

"I've gotta go to the bathroom," she said. "Then let's go find that NASCAR guy Amy was talking about and get autographs." Wow. The plan was working already.

"I'm not sure he's in the studio right now, but we can check," said Tony.

"Do you think it's Dale Earnhardt, Junior?" asked Brianna.

Tony knew nothing much about NASCAR, but he had seen enough commercials to know Dale Earnhardt, Junior probably didn't need a second career doing stunt work for syndicated television. While Brianna found the bathroom, Tony went to find Amy. "Oh sure," she said once she'd finished telling a caller in graphic detail what CB Productions did with unsolicited manuscripts. "She came in to go over the scene with Daniel. I left her talking with him and Lee a few minutes ago. C'mon." As soon stood up, Tony noticed that Amy's magenta fingernails and hair matched her knee-high lace-up boots today. The rest of her outfit was classic black. Then he stopped focusing on Amy's fashion sense and back on what she'd  
actually said. Specifically, the pronoun she'd just used.

"'She'?" said Tony, as he followed Amy around a corner. Sure enough, there stood Daniel, Lee and CB talking with a dark-haired, attractive _woman_. Lee was asking the woman a question, and as Tony watched, she leaned forward and whispered in his ear, and they both laughed at whatever the shared private joke had been. Jesus. What the hell was it with Lee and stuntwomen, anyway?

"Vivienne Kelley," Amy was saying. "Drove in the NASCAR Busch Series until the season before last. She came in fourth at Charlotte once, but that was the highest she ever finished before she lost her ride. I guess she still races semi-professionally, though." Off Tony's look she added, "What? I keep telling you, I'm a well-rounded, multifaceted person."

"There you are!" came an accusing voice behind him. Brianna pushed past Tony and Amy to join the circle of adults that included her father. "Hi, Daddy!" she said. "Tony and I were looking for a race car driver who's supposed to be around here." Tony notice Lee glance up at that, smile, and mouth the word "Hi!" in his direction.

CB shot Tony a different look over his daughter's head. One that clearly conveyed the message, _Why are you wasting time?_ Then, "Yes, sweetheart. This is Vivienne--Vivi--Kelley, race car driver. Ms. Kelley, this is my daughter, Brianna."

"Hi, Brianna," said Vivi Kelley, extending her hand towards the girl. "It's nice to meet you."

"Hi," said Brianna, as she took the stuntwoman's hand and shook it. Now _that_ was a tone Tony had never heard in the youngest Bane's voice before. If he didn't know any better, he'd swear it was almost shy. He glanced at her face. It was a look he'd never seen on Brianna, either, though he recognized it as nearly identical to the one her sister Ashley wore whenever she was around Mason Reed. Brianna wasn't even nine yet, so he suspected that what he was seeing here was merely a version of hero worship. He thought back to his memories of himself at that age. Then again, there was a chance that Brianna's thing was never going to be boys.

"I'm going to help Daniel here wreck some cars for your dad's TV show," Vivi Kelley was saying to Brianna as she signed her name to a paper towel the girl was holding. Tony was trying to communicate to Lee with his eyes over the heads of the other adults that he wanted to talk as soon as they got the chance to be alone. Lee nodded.

"Daddy, I want to watch them wreck some cars," Brianna said. "You can take me, right?" When CB looked uncertain, she added, "It _is_ my almost-birthday."

CB looked at Tony, who shrugged. "Mr. Foster, you will continue the special assignment we talked about tomorrow. In the meantime, you do have a job to do on my television show." Tony was impressed. No one could play CB like that but his daughters. He bet Pam, the second unit director, was just going to love the extra company.

The group began to break up. Brianna went with her father, and Lee maneuvered his way to Tony's side. "So, we're going to break for lunch in a bit..." Lee began.

Amy stuck her head back around the corner and said, "Oh, Tony. I almost forgot. Jack called looking for you again. I said you were in a meeting this morning, but he wants to know if you can meet him and Constable Danvers at lunch time."

At almost the exact same time a man Tony barely recognized as their newest production assistant rounded the corner at the other end of the hall and said, "Oh, Mr. Foster. Adam says you're needed on set now."

Lee groaned and Tony hit his head against the wall. "Later, then?" said Lee.

"I certainly hope so," said Tony.

"You'll let me know if I can help with whatever Elson wants?" said Lee.

"I will," said Tony, hoping it was nothing in which Lee could possibly be of the slightest bit of assistance. He was trying not to treat the other man like a damsel in distress, as he'd been accused of last fall, but he still didn't like the idea of Lee becoming involved in the metaphysical side of his life. Not in the least because Lee Nicholas seemed to be a magnet for possession by every force of supernatural evil in the greater Vancouver area.

"Okay, then. See you later?"

"See you later." _If there is a later when I'm not busy, and you haven't re-discovered the joys of compulsory heterosexuality_ , he added to himself.

* * *

Tony supposed he shouldn't have been surprised when Amy came along to lunch. It wasn't just that she was now dating Jack Elson, it was that she had to be in the loop whenever anything supernatural and weird went down.

"So, what's up?" Tony asked as soon as they'd given their drink orders to the waitress.

"So, that Demonic Conversion you've been picking up after?" said Elson. "I think you might have missed one."

"There have been nine disappearances and three apparent suicides in the Jericho Beach area since last fall," said Danvers. "Jack thinks there may be a connection, and it may be..." she made a gesture with both hands.

"Using spirit fingers?" Tony guessed.

Danvers frowned. "Supernatural."

"But we were just on location there!" said Amy. "Tony, did you notice anything weird?"

"Aside from the usual weirdness we brought along with our vampire detective TV show? Not really."

"And all of your people are present and accounted for?" asked Elson.

"Yeah," said Amy. "Well, Mouse Gilbert didn't come in to work today, but his old lady called in this morning and said he was in bed with the flu, so we know where he is."

"I guess it would help if I knew the sort of weird I was supposed to be looking for," said Tony.

Elson sighed. His expression clearly conveyed that he himself couldn't quite believe what he was going to say next, either. "Is it possible for something evil to possess a car?"

"I don't know," said Tony. "I suppose it would depend on whether the something evil had a valid driver's license, and either cash on hand or good enough credit for a bank loan," he caught Elson's look. "Not funny, eh?" The cop shook his head. "You're talking about something out of _Christine_?"

Elson nodded. "The one thing these cases have in common is that the same vehicle was spotted at the scene in everyone one in which there was a witness. Several times it's been spotted abandoned directly on the beach with no signs of how it got there. Three times an individual with no previous reported suicidal tendencies has climbed into this thing and driven it directly into the bay at speeds in excess of 80 kilometers an hour. One guy was three weeks away from his wedding day. No traces of the missing have ever been found, and no bodies have been recovered. The car, on the other hand, gets spotted again and again, still in prime condition. I _know_ it's impossible for it to be the same car, but since meeting you, Mr. Foster, you'd be amazed at the number of impossible things I can believe before breakfast."

"There was some weird with a car," Tony said. "After we wrapped for the day. Not big weird, though. It wasn't doing anything, and nobody drove it into the water, but somebody'd parked it and left their doors open in all day in the rain. It didn't occur to me until after I got home to wonder if it meant someone was in trouble."

Danvers and Elson exchanged glances. "Jade black Boss 429?" said Elson. It almost wasn't a question.

"No, this one was a Ford Mustang," said Tony. Jack Elson gave him a look that said, _You know nothing about cars, do you?_

Well, no, Tony didn't know lots about cars. To be fair, he hadn't even had a license until after his encounter with the Shadowlord, when he'd realized the impracticality of trying to save the world on public transportation. Lee was more of the car guy.

Fuck. He'd just realized Elson had given him a case that fell well within Lee's area of expertise. And the only other car people he knew were either off filming a movie or down with the flu. Goddammit, he so did not want Lee getting involved in another close encounter with the metaphysical. Especially since Danvers was sliding a photo across the table to him, asking him if _this_ was what the vehicle he'd seen in the parking lot, and he knew without a doubt that this time evil had come in Vancouver in a form Lee was likely to find exceptionally cool.

"That's the car I saw," he said. "This thing is a Christine?"

"This is our Christine," Danvers confirmed.

"Okay, first off, it's not a Christine," said Amy. "Christine was a very specific 1958 Plymouth Fury. It's not a faux-generic name for every evil car like Jell-O or Kleenex. This car here is a '69 Mustang, and besides, its M.O. sounds completely different."

"That was why we were hoping Tony could tell us what we were dealing with," Elson said. "Is something evil inhabiting the car? Is this a spell? My personal theory was maybe some sort of shape-shifting demon, but I wasn't sure if demons could actually do that."

Tony had no idea. If it was possible for evil waxy buildup to form on houses, he supposed it could happen with cars. As for the shape-shifting demon theory, wasn't it established somewhere that demons couldn't form complex machines? No, that was _The Terminator_ , he realized. "Maybe you should consult Stephen King," he said at last.

"Do you know how to get in touch with Stephen King?" asked Elson. Tony shook his head. "How about your romance writer buddy? Does he have Mr. King's phone number?"

He meant Henry Fitzroy, vampire, bastard son of Henry VIII and Tony's sort-of ex. Henry would normally be the first person Tony would go to with this sort of thing, but two days ago Henry had gotten a phone call from Victory Nelson and had made one of his rare trips out of the city to deal with some supernatural crisis he'd refused to let Tony help with or even learn any details about. Yeah, Tony could see why Lee got so pissed off sometimes.

"Henry's out of town," was what he offered the constables. "And, no, probably not."

"Then you're what we've got," said Elson. "Any theories?"

"I don't suppose we could talk to the witnesses?" Amy said.

* * *

In the end, five had agreed to talk with them. They all told remarkably similar stories.

Sharon Miller, who would have been Richards last week, had suffered a broken leg, jaw and collarbone when her fiancé ran over her on his way to his own apparent watery grave: "...But it wasn't him, you know? The door shut by itself, and the car turned on, and it was like he suddenly came out from under a spell and I could hear him screaming all the way to the water. I know he was behind the wheel, but it was like he wasn't driving, wasn't in control. I don't know what even made him get inside, except that he..."

Bruce Smith, local therapist: "...Always wanted a Mustang. I said, 'John, what are you doing?' and he said, 'I just want to take a look at it' and kept walking. It was like he was possessed or something. So I went to go get our food, and when I came back, he was gone and so was the car. That was the last I ever saw of him..."

Roland Darvish, street musician: "...So I go, 'Dude, what the hell are you doing?' and he's like, 'I'm just going for a ride, man. One ride, then I'll bring it right back', and that was when the door opened by itself..."

Larry Wu, garage owner: "...The damn thing drove by itself, swear to God. It was like it was following her. But I chased it off, right? So I'm in the office calling the police when I heard its motor again. That's a sound I'll never forget. Then I heard a car door open and slam, and that was the last I saw of Torin..."

Dennis Arnold, high school student: "...It was driving by itself. I know, because she was in the passenger seat the whole time until she realized it was moving. I saw her try the door first, and when that wouldn't work, she tried to turn the wheel. She _did_ turn the wheel, even, but the damn thing just kept going straight until it hit the fucking ocean. It wasn't suicide. They keep trying to tell me that it was. Keep telling me that I'm crazy in not so many words, but I know what I saw..."

"And they all talked about rain."

"What was that?" Amy had been uncharacteristically quiet on the drive back, and Tony had almost forgotten she was there until he'd accidentally vocalized that last thought.

"All of them mentioned it was raining," said Tony. "Well, except for the woman who found the car right on the beach. Maybe I'm not onto something."

"Maybe you are," said Amy. "I've been studying the pattern. Near as anybody can pin down an exact location, the early encounters were very near the water. Then it's like its hunting ground gets bigger. If all the people who went missing on land did disappear when it was raining..."

"Ask Jack how significant that might be, given that this is Vancouver," said Tony.

"The thing that really bugs me about this whole thing is that all the stories sound familiar. Like something I've read before."

"I know," said Tony. "I saw the John Carpenter movie."

"No, idiot," said Amy. "Something else. Like it's on the tip of my brain, but I can't quite remember. I keep thinking of fairy tales for some reason."

Fairy tales, thought Tony. Well, he'd heard of fairies taking children, but never drowning motorists. Besides, weren't fairies and complex machines sort of un-mix-y things as well?

"Tell you what," said Amy. "I'm going to go home, get some stuff from my personal library, and start the preliminary research on this. You have a date you're long overdue to keep."

He thought about arguing for second, then thought about Lee's lips on his and changed his mind. Then he had another thought. "We do have an expert on Mustangs--at least the non-supernatural kind--in our arsenal. Amy, are we sure Mouse is okay?"

"According to the graphic description of his illness I got on the phone, he can barely leave his bed, let alone go out and get eaten by a car," Amy paused. "Maybe I'll check on him one more time, just to be sure. At least let him know what's going on. In the meantime, you need to go home and put on some different clothes."

* * *

Meanwhile, something that was at least outwardly recognizable as a Ford Mustang was parked outside of CB Productions, making note of its current prey. There was power in this building, it could tell, and some of the humans who lived or worked here were equally powerful. It knew because one had actually used power on _it_. That had been surprising. The larger human it had taken last night did not have such power, but had loved it so very much. It wished it could have kept the man around. It always tried, but the humans never lasted very long after it got them home. They adored it, then they feared it, and very soon after it took them under the water with it to show them how much it loved them too, they stopped doing anything at all. Then they were only food.

The one it was watching now was a gorgeous male with dark hair and green eyes. It was observing the man for now, and had decided it would probably take him when he was finished with his business in the center of power.

The man was almost to the front doors of the structure when he collided with an equally lovely woman on her way out. They were stopping to communicate, it seemed. The thing considered for a moment, then decided it was time for a change of plans.

* * *

"Have you seen Tony?" Lee Nicholas asked Vivi Kelley after apologizing for running into her like that. "Tony Foster? About yay high, looks a little like Vincent Kartheiser? Possibly being trailed by an eight-year-old?"

Vivi shook her head. "I know who you mean, but he's not here. The woman with the pink hair in your office said he'd had gone home to change for a date."

"Huh. I just tried his apartment. He wasn't there and he isn't answering his cell. I was hoping maybe he'd gone back to the studio."

"Well, the eight-year-old is still in the studio, and she's been expecting him, too. Actually, she spent most of the day following me around. Says she wants to be a race car driver when she grows up if what she kept calling 'the wizard thing' doesn't work out. Cute kid. She was a little upset when she found out Tony had gone off without her, though. I hope for his sake, he's got a good story ready when she wakes up," said Vivi. Then, "Oh, wow. Is that your car?"

Lee looked to where she was pointing. "I wish," he said. "That's a Boss Mustang, isn't it?"

"Four Twenty-Nine," confirmed Vivi. "I always wanted a car like that."

"Me too," said Lee. "I wonder whose it is. They've left their lights on." It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his life.

"Yeah. Do you think they'd mind if we checked it out? Maybe turned the lights off for them."

The black Mustang's doors opened.

"No. I think it'd be okay if we took it for a ride, even."

"Yeah, I think they'd be fine with that," said Vivi.

Hand in hand like children, Lee and Vivi began to walk toward the car.

Which was when the flash went off behind them. More humans had come out of the building. The car pulled away and faded back into the shadows unobserved. It might take of these people eventually, but in its current form it didn't seat that many at once. It could wait. And it was good at not being noticed until it wanted to be again.

* * *

Lee turned. Jeremy, the new production assistant, was standing there with a few people Lee didn't recognize. "Lee...er, Mr. Nicholas? Have you seen Mason? These guys are here for the photo shoot?" Even that last statement was a question.

Lee shrugged and shook his head to clear it. What had he just been doing? It had seemed fairly important. "I'm not sure. Is he in CB's office?"

"I just checked? He's not in there? Zev suggested maybe he'd gone out for a cigarette and CB suggested..."

Lee pointed before the PA had a chance to verbalize just what exactly CB had suggested. "Try the other side of the building."

"Thanks Mr. Nicholas! Now I just have to find a good way to tell the boss his daughter is asleep in Raymond Dark's coffin, and we need to move her," he winced. "Hopefully without waking her up again?"

Vivi Kelley laughed. "Well, I've got to get going."

"Me too," said Lee. "It was nice to meet you, Vivi." Risking death for a living was one thing, but anybody who could spend the day being trailed by Brianna and still maintain a sense of humor about it had his respect.

They got into their own vehicles and exited the lot in opposite directions, one of them pursued by a Mustang.

* * *

Tony arrived at CB Productions fifteen minutes later. He'd gone to Lee's apartment, and waited until well after Lee was supposed to be off work, but Lee hadn't showed. When he went to try and call Lee, he discovered his cell phone battery had gone dead at some point during the day. He supposed he'd have to unearth the charger from the mess that was his apartment. Some day, he was going to get around to perfecting that cleaning spell.

Mason's photo shoot was occupying the sound stage. He saw CB walking towards his office, cradling a sleeping Brianna in his arms. CB put a finger to his lips as he nodded at Tony, who knew what was good for him and kept very, very quiet.

Zev was here, still working on the score for the upcoming episode. Apparently, he'd just missed Amy, who'd left a Post-It stuck to her computer screen with the words, "Tony Water Horse" on it. Yeah, it was a Mustang and apparently attracted to water. That hadn't told him anything new. Daniel was just leaving, on his way to his second job.

"Oh, yeah. Nicholas was here, came back and left again. Word is he was dressed for a date and picking up Kelley. I didn't know he was into stock car drivers."

" _Ex_ stock car drivers," Tony said, realizing too late he sounded unnecessarily harsh.

Daniel shrugged. "Whatever. I guess Mason's pissed because it's his photo shoot, and all the photographers can talk about is the shot they got of his co-star holding hands in the parking lot. Good career move on Kelley's part, though. Dating an actor, I mean."

 _And a good move on Lee's, keeping up that appearance of heterosexuality in front of the press_ , thought Tony.

Zev waited until Daniel had left, and put a hand on Tony's shoulder. "You do realize Daniel's not exactly in the loop about things around here. And completely oblivious to anything that doesn't involve stuff like falling down in interesting ways."

Tony nodded. It wasn't exactly as though he and Lee had definite plans tonight anyway. Or they had the sort of relationship where Tony had veto power over anything Lee did with the rest of his personal life.

Zev continued, "I, on the other hand, am a very perceptive guy, and can tell you he never once looked at her the way he looks at you. Now Brianna might have developed a little crush, but it's way too soon for time to tell on that one."

Tony nodded again. Besides, Lee had never promised to be publicly bisexual. If Tony wasn't okay with his beloved holding hands in public with a series of beautiful women, he never should have become involved with an actor in the first place.

* * *

In the end, Tony had used Amy's phone to leave a message on Lee's voice mail, then gone back to his apartment. He finally found his phone charger under a pile of dirty clothes, and plugged it into the wall. He searched his laptop for anything under "car", "automobile", "auto", "vehicle" and even "chariot", but got nothing. The problem was he had no idea what Arra's people drove, if they even did, or what words to search under for it. He did find a couple of entries by cross-referencing possessed objects and water, but those only mentioned that water--particularly holy water, but even the regular kind, especially if it was running--was something evil spirits usually avoided. It wasn't their standard M.O., to use Amy's phrase, to go out and play in the rain.

He made himself a frozen pizza, tried a few more fruitless searches, then finally gave up, stripped down to his boxers, and slid a disc into the DVD player. On screen, Plymouth Furies were rolling off the assembly line to George Thorogood and the Destroyers when Tony heard the knock at his door. Sighing, Tony switched off the television and reached for his discarded pair of pants. "Coming!" he yelled.

Lee Nicholas stood framed in the doorway. "It sounds to me like you aren't even breathing hard. Yet," the actor observed.

Tony pulled him into the apartment, taking just the briefest second to register that the wards weren't reacting and therefore this really was Lee, and not something pretending to be Lee or possibly Lee possessed by something else. Then he kissed him. Hard.

"Where have you been?" Tony demanded when they finally broke off.

"Looking for you!" Lee said. "I've been here twice, to the studio, to my apartment, to that one restaurant where we were supposed to have dinner that night with Mason and the werecow...I even called Constable Elson to see if he knew where you were, and finally I was driving down routes between here and the places people remembered seeing you today, checking to see if any of them had ditches and if you were lying dead in one! Finally, I drove by here again and saw lights on. Where were _you_? And don't you ever answer your phone?"

"The battery was dead," said Tony. "And I was looking for you. Popular opinion was that you were out with an ex-professional stock car driver."

"Vivi Kelley?" said Lee. He appeared genuinely confused. "Why would I be out with Vivi Kelley? I imagine she's busy getting as far away from CB Productions as possible and vowing to never work for us again since you somehow stuck her with your babysitting job. Now what's this about you playing magical consultant to Elson and Danvers again?"

Tony weighed his options, and decided on the partial truth. "There is a situation I'm going to have to deal with. I may even ask for your help. But right now, you're here and I'm here, and everyone at the studio is safe, there's nothing more I know how to do tonight, and I really don't want to talk about it." He grabbed Lee around the waist, pulled him closer and began to demonstrate just exactly what he wanted to do instead. From the wordless response he got, Lee was more than willing to go along with that plan.

* * *

**III. Under Caution**

Vivi Kelley couldn't shake the feeling something had been following her since she left the studio parking lot. She didn't get where she'd been without developing a pretty good sense of what was on her back bumper, so it bothered her that part of her _knew_ there was something, though she couldn't see it in her rearview. It bothered her when stopped at the store. It bothered her all the way along the long and overly circuitous route she took to get back to her own apartment. When she reached her spot in the parking garage, she shut of her engine and sat shivering in the driver's seat for a few minutes. She checked one more time, convincing herself she was being ridiculous, before getting out of the car. Even so, she kept her cell phone in one hand, and when she went to retrieve her grocery bags from the trunk, found herself pocketing the phone and reaching for the tire iron instead.

She heard an engine rev, screamed, and turned ninety degrees to find the car staring at her. It was _the_ car, of course, the black Mustang from the studio, possibly the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life, and while she knew she was anthropomorphizing, it did seem to be staring at her. It revved its engine again. It was...talking to her? The engine noise in her head was beginning to form almost-words. One of them might have even been her name.

The car she'd really _always_ wanted, the mythical car of her dreams, ran in the Nextel Cup, but this...this was a close second, and this was here and attainable. The driver's side door opened. Oh, yeah. She was just going to take it for a little ride. Nobody would mind. Besides, it had followed her home. That made it hers, didn't it? Yes, it was hers, and she loved it, and wanted it more than anything in the world.

She dropped everything she was carrying. She dropped the tire iron on her foot.

"Fuck!" she screamed, and as the pain slammed her back to her senses, she ran the last few lines of thought through her head again. The car had followed her home. The car. Had followed. Her home. The car that was now driving towards her all by itself. She worked in television long enough to know the tricks for making it look like there was no one driving a moving vehicle. This wasn't any of them. There was no human being in control of the Boss 429.

She grabbed her keys from the pavement and ran back towards her own car, sliding across the hood as she mashed the button to unlock the automatic doors, then re-locking the doors as she dove behind the wheel. She smashed backwards into the Mustang and heard the sounds of metal colliding with metal and a shriek that sounded almost human. She pulled forward, then rammed backwards into the other car again. The Mustang's engine was screaming. Whatever the hell the Mustang truly was, its voice was screaming. She'd hurt it. It backed off just long enough for her to get her car pointed toward the exit and get maybe a millisecond's head start. As she peeled out into the rainy Vancouver evening with the thing still on her tail, she realized she had no real idea what her next move would be.

* * *

Tony's pants were down around his ankles. Lee's teeth were nibbling his earlobe. Lee's hands were caressing his ass. No, wait. Lee was moving one of them around front, stroking between Tony's legs, then up, where it wrapped around his cock.

Tony's own hands were busy with the extremely stubborn button on the front of Lee's jeans. Lee groaned as Tony finally managed both button and zipper, releasing him from the too-tight fabric. He wasn't wearing underwear.

Lee's mouth was back on Tony's now, kissing him hard, and Lee's hands were moving, pushing Tony's boxer shorts down to join his pants around his ankles.

They broke off, just briefly. Just long enough for each of them to step away and free his legs from their respective puddles of fabric. Just long enough for Tony to let his eyes wander up and down the entire length of Lee for the first time. Just long enough for Tony to realize that Lee was giving him the same intimate gaze, taking in every bit of Tony, every scar, and approving of what he saw.

Tony reached out his left hand and called Come to Me. The distance between them was barely significant, so it didn't hurt when Lee's naked body was suddenly pressed against Tony's own by the force of wizardly energy. Instead, the sensation of it made them both gasp.

Then need took over again, and they fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs and desire.

* * *

When they finally separated, Lee was smiling and Tony was laughing.

"What's up?" Lee asked.

"Well, nothing right now. But if you give me a minute..."

"Okay. But what's funny?"

"I was just thinking how soft and comfortable embarrassing piles of laundry make the floor when you can't quite wait to get to the bed."

"You have a bed somewhere under all this?"

"Heh. Funny. And, yes, I have a bed somewhere. Want to help me find it?"

"No, I think I'm good here," said Lee.

"Me too," said Tony. Lee was stroking Tony's arm. Tony rolled over to kiss him again. Now that the immediate need from long unfulfilled desire had been satiated, they could spend the evening exploring and enjoying each others' bodies. As Lee's mouth moved against his, Tony thought he might be up for more very soon.

So that was, of course, when someone knocked on the door.

"Fuck," Tony muttered, as Lee grabbed a pair of jeans and dove behind the sofa. "Coming!" Tony yelled, as he slipped his boxers back on and wrapped a sheet from one of the dirty laundry piles around his waist for good measure.

"Are you? Oh, shit. I can come back later," he heard a vaguely familiar voice saying. Vivi Kelley was on the other side of the door. He opened it, and she took in Tony's state of undress. "You're breathing hard," she observed.

"Can I help you?" Tony asked.

"I'm...oh geez, this is awkward," she began. "I think I'm being stalked. By a rare 1969 Mustang. And I don't mean the person who's _driving_ the car, either. I heard you help with that sort of thing."

"That car from the studio?" came a voice from behind the sofa. "That's Vivi, right?"

"Lee?"

"Yep. I'll be with you in just a second here," said Lee.

" _What_ car from the studio?" asked Tony, desire and frustration suddenly giving away to fear and anger. He gestured for Vivi to come in, and was only vaguely disappointed when the wards failed to react to her at all.

"What was supposed to happen?" Vivi asked, noting his reaction.

"If you're evil or something, cherries fall from the sky," said Lee, still behind the sofa. "Uh, Tony, I don't think these are my pants."

* * *

Explanations took a while, especially given that there had been a bit of a row when Lee found out that the car was the focus of Tony's investigation and Tony hadn't told him, and Tony found out Lee had _seen_ the car, had practically been seduced by it, and hadn't told _him_.

"Well, I didn't know it was evil!" Lee had shouted.

"You didn't think there was anything odd about your sudden desire to drive off in a strange car with someone you'd barely met?" Tony had shouted back.

"Maybe a little odd. But the thing was a classic! Besides, it didn't feel evil. Just a little like..."

"A little like what?" Tony demanded.

"A little like if Ryne Cyratane had been a Ford," Lee admitted.

"Dammit, Lee, the next time something reminds you of the influence of an immortal sex demon, you tell me!"

"Well, I was going to, but your tongue was in my mouth at the time!"

"Okay, yeah, but..."

"And speaking of, Mr. I-Don't-Want-to-Talk-Now, I'm beginning to wonder just how much of that was a diversionary tactic to keep me from finding out and getting involved!"

"How can you even ask that?" said Tony.

"So you would have told me immediately after the," Lee looked at Vivi, then back at Tony. "You know?"

"Sex," Vivi supplied. Both men paused. "Never mind. You were hiding what was going on there very well. I had no idea."

"Yes! Maybe! Probably," said Tony in response to Lee's question.

"See?!"

"Well, maybe I would feel better about letting you in on this stuff if you didn't keep making decisions that are going to get you killed!"

"I see. You don't trust me."

"I don't want to lose you!"

"You're not going to lose me!"

"I almost just did!"

"Well, if you'd gotten me involved in the first place I might have known to watch out for a demonic Mustang, and you might not have come so close!"

And so on for a while.

Then Vivi gave the details of her encounter with the car, starting with meeting it and Lee in the parking lot.

"Which was when everybody at the studio thought you'd left together," Tony said.

"It makes sense," said Vivi. "They did see us together, and we were probably looking enthralled. Just not, you know, with each other. They added two and two together, got five and made their own fun. Trust me, you have nothing to worry about from me. Or from anybody, I think. Lee and I spoke maybe fifteen sentences to each other, and every other word out of his mouth was 'Tony'."

Lee turned an interesting shade of red.

"Which almost always referred to you, though just the once was to ask me if it was really true about Tony Stewart. Which I still think it is, though he'll deny everything. Loudly. With cussing."

Tony wasn't quite sure who Tony Stewart was, let alone what may or may not be true about him, so he decided to let that one go.

Following the encounter at Vivi's apartment had been a high speed chase through the streets of Vancouver, her eventual certainty that she'd managed to lose the thing, and the ill-timed knock on Tony's door.

"But how did you know to go to Tony?" Lee asked.

"Brianna told me he was a wizard who saved the world on a regular basis," she said. "After nearly being seduced by an evil, driver-less Boss 9, I figured there were less plausible things."

Tony sighed. He was going to have to have a talk with Brianna regarding the concept of secret identity.

"And then Amy from your studio gave me your address and phone number."

Also with Amy. While he was at it, he was going to mention that while it was probably not a bad idea to send people in metaphysical trouble to your local wizard, the polite thing to do was call first to make sure the wizard in question was not otherwise engaged and was wearing pants.

"I tried the number first, but nobody answered," Vivi continued.

"That's weird," said Tony. He crossed the room and picked up his cell phone. Oh yeah, it would have helped if, in addition to plugging it into the charger, he'd remembered to turn it back on. Shit. He pressed the power button. There were twenty-seven missed calls, a good many from Lee, one from a number he didn't recognize that was probably Vivi's, and the rest from Amy. He jumped as the phone began to play the _Darkest Night_ theme.

"Hi Amy, she's here. She's okay," Tony said.

"Good," said Amy. Then, "Don't you ever answer your phone?!"

"Dead battery," he said, adding _and idiot wizard_ only in his head.

"She was covering for him," said Amy.

"What?"

"Mouse's old lady. He never made it home last night. Yesterday was the anniversary of the day his ex-wife left him and took his daughter with her. He tends to spend the day on a bender. When he didn't come home last night, she figured history was just repeating itself and called into the studio to cover for him because she was concerned about his job. She only started to get really worried when she never got the call to come bail him out of the drunk tank."

Tony hoped against hope that Mouse was somewhere safe and quiet sleeping it off.

"It gets worse. His car was still in the lot where he left it. I talked to Kate, and Kate says last she saw him he was in the parking lot. Going to have a closer look at a black Ford Mustang."

Oh, God. After he'd pointed out the car to Kate, she'd probably pointed it out to Mouse, and...

"The good news is I think I know what we're dealing with. I found it in a book of Scottish fairy and folk tales. The bad news is...well, I don't think a ride in that car is one anybody survives."

_It had taken Mouse._

"I'm on my way over right now with Jack. We were going to see if you were okay, but since you are, we'll explain more when we get there."

Tony felt sick. Mouse was one of his people. One who had survived Shadow possession, and fought beside him in the haunted mansion ride, and through the Demonlord invasion.

_It had taken Mouse, and it had already tried for Lee._

The Mustang wasn't going to last the night.

* * *

"Kelpie," said Amy, when she, Jack, Vivi, Tony and Lee were all assembled in Tony's living room. It would have been crowded without the mess. One of these days, Tony resolved, he was going to have company over when his apartment didn't look as though a bomb had gone off in his clothes closet. Ah, well. At least he had been fully dressed this time.

"What?" Lee asked.

"Scottish water horse," said Amy. "It was a sort of shapeshifting fairy creature. In the stories, it would disguise itself as a horse grazing along the banks of lakes and rivers and such. It was like the most beautiful horse you had ever seen in your life. When you saw it, you couldn't help but try to ride it. Only thing is, once you climbed on its back you were stuck fast. Once it had captured someone it would charge into the water, taking its victim with it. The people would drown. Or the kelpie would devour them. Or both. The stories aren't exactly clear on that point, but either way, it wasn't a good way to die."

_It had taken Mouse and tried to take Lee._

"But this is a car," said Vivi.

"Yeah, and this is modern day Vancouver," said Jack Elson. "Horses aren't exactly the most common form of transportation anymore. We figure it's a shapeshifter; it adapted by learning to shift into the equivalent modern form."

"Really cool classic cars," said Vivi. "I wonder how it knows. Can it read people's minds, or did it go through some trial and error before figuring out that no one reacts quite the same way to a minivan?"

"The Scottish ones had different forms, too," said Amy. "Its other form was a naked man or sometimes a woman, often covered entirely in horse hair. One story had one that could shift into a tuft of wool. It was usually different kinds of horses, though, when it was on land and would change shape or color to avoid being detected."

"So it could still do that?" asked Lee. "Once it finds out we're on to it, next time we see it, it might be a '57 Chevy? Or the hairiest guy on Wreck Beach?"

"It's a possibility," said Jack. "Which is why I think it's a good idea to capture it and deal with it as soon as possible."

"I think we all think that," said Tony. "The question is, how do we stop it?"

"Take its power source," said Amy. "According to legend, anyway, these things are hard to hurt and even harder to kill, but if you captured the source of its power it was completely under your control, and you had yourself the world's finest plow horse."

"So we're talking about, what, ripping the engine out?"

"Maybe not," said Amy. "On a horse kelpie, the power was always in the bridle. I don't know what the equivalent would be on car kelpie."

"Steering wheel?"

"No, because then the victims' hands wouldn't have stuck to it like that."

"Got me. I know fuck all about horses."

"Well, what's the equivalent of a bridle on a naked guy?"

The room fell silent as various pornographic responses were weighed and discarded.

"Look," said Tony. "That thing may have been a friend of ours' very last ride. If that's what it takes, I'm all in favor of tearing it apart and reducing it to its various components until we find the one that works. But now that we know this thing is otherworldy, I think I've got something that can take it out."

"Powershot?" whispered Lee.

Tony nodded.

"You'll only get one shot at that, you know."

"That's all I'll need," said Tony.

" _If_ Amy's right," said Lee.

"Hey!" said Amy, who heard that. "I'm one hundred...okay, ninety-nine point forty-four percent positive."

"And I'm sure enough," said Tony.

"One problem," said Vivi. "We know what it is, but do we know where it is?"

Everybody looked at Amy again. "Well, some of the legends tie them to specific bodies of water. So if that's the case, we'd do best looking around English Bay. Or possibly the entire Pacific Ocean. Of course, others say these things travel--and given I'm betting this one's not a Vancouver native and it seems to be covering plenty of ground lately, I'd vote for that as the more likely scenario here--and can camp out in bodies of water as small as a large puddle."

Heads turned to look out Tony's window.

"Vancouver is screwed," said Jack.

Tony had a vision of a Ford Mustang suddenly manifesting in his toilet bowl.

"It's probably back at the studio," said Lee. Everybody turned to look at him. "That's where everything else creepy seems to wind up."

"Amy," Tony said. "Could you call CB and make sure nobody goes out in the parking lot for the next while?"

* * *

In the end they'd split up. Tony and Lee would check out the studio. Elson was going to pick up his partner and stake out Vivi's apartment, as that was the last place it had been spotted and Vivi said _she_ wasn't going back there just yet. She was taking Amy to go check out the beach.

In the end, Lee turned out to be absolutely right. Tony was discovering another good reason why he didn't want Lee involved in these things. His mind had stored several fantasies that involved both of them in a parked car at night. Fantasies that, given what had happened at the apartment earlier, were now being pushed by his hindbrain to the front of his thoughts as distinct real-life possibilities. Unfortunately, none of these were conducive to a successful stakeout.

He was checking in with Amy mostly to try to distract himself from the hyperawareness he was developing in regards to the proximity of Lee's body, when the familiar black shape pulled into the studio parking lot.

"What's it doing?" Amy was asking.

"Nothing yet. It just parked in a space and shut itself off," said Tony. "Maybe it's power napping? I'll wait until everyone's here, then we go with the plan."

"We're on our way," said Amy.

And then a door slammed.

"Lee!" Tony screamed.

* * *

**IV. Final Lap**

While there was no real truth to the rumor that Chester Bane lived in his office, he did work the more-than-ocassional long night, and had a couch in there for napping. That was where Brianna realized she was when she finally woke up.

She'd been having a dream that she and Tony were racing cars against each other. She knew, the way you know things in dreams, that it was somehow important that she get in front of him. Not only to win, but to save the whole world. Only that poop-head wasn't letting her past. And then the tap-dancing penguins wandered onto the track and the caution came out, and she'd slipped into another dream where somebody was telling her father about a man-eating water-car horse thing that was outside the studio, and how stupid Tony didn't want anybody else going outside until he said so. He father was promising to take care of it, kissing her on the forehead, and closing the door of his office quietly so as not to wake her up.

Her father wasn't very good at shutting doors quietly.

And that was when she realized where she was, and that all of that hadn't been a dream. She got up, determined to find out what was going on. And when she did, she was going to make her father fire someone for not letting her in on it.

* * *

Just that fast, the black Mustang was driving towards them and Lee was out of the SUV. Shit. He'd taken the keys with him. Tony got out and followed.

The Boss 9's engine was humming, and Vivi was right. There was an undercurrent to the sound the seemed almost like words. In fact, it sounded like one of the words was "Lee" and another was "mine".

And Tony understood just a little what it was like to be Henry Fitzroy.

"Mine!" he screamed at the thing as he activated Come to Me. The rage lent him power but not common sense, he realized, as Lee's body slammed into him and knocked him to the ground.

"Tony?" said Lee, sounding like he was just waking up.

"Run," said Tony. When Lee hesitated, Tony summoned all his emotion into a reasonable approximation of Henry's Prince of Man voice combined with one of CB's more commanding tones. "I said, run!"

Lee ran.

Tony got to his feet, turned to face the car, raised his left arm and screamed eleven syllables. The Powershot hit it full on, with a force that was literally blinding. Tony heard an engine roar that was somehow also a shriek of pain, and thought he smelled flesh, rubber and metal burning. The flesh, he realized might well be a bit of his own. When the spots cleared from his eyes, he expected to see a familiar rain of ash and possibly scorch marks on the pavement.

The Mustang was still standing.

At least, it was still there, upright on all four tires. It looked like hell and bits of it were burned away, but Powershots obviously didn't work on fairy creatures the same way they did on demons, and it was still, for all intents and purposes, running. The engine turned over.

There was no chance to get out of its way.

* * *

When a wizard heals himself, he takes on all the pain the injuries would have given him over time at once. It was why most wizards don't do it, Leah'd once told him. He screamed and nearly blacked out as the pain seemed to go on forever. It took damn near everything he had left, but he managed to mend his body at least enough to get back on his feet again.

The car was in front of him. The car was talking to him. He didn't know if being able to understand it came from being a wizard, but the sound of the engine in his head was also a voice explaining to him in quite a reasonable tone that it loved Lee, and Lee loved it, and it would be taking Lee home with it soon. There was room for Tony to go, too, if Tony wanted. It was hurt, and it was angry, but it would heal. And it hoped with Tony's power that he would last longer than the others had.

 _No_ , Tony thought at it. _Lee is mine. Mouse was mine. All these are under my protection. Leave now._

It was amused at this. What did Tony have left to threaten it with? Nothing, Tony realized. He couldn't outrun it and he had no more power left to throw at it, at least not if he wanted to keep living. Well, then, last stand. He raised his arm.

And something slammed into side of the kelpie-Mustang. A Mercedes SUV with Lee behind the wheel. Before it had a chance to recover, Lee backed up and ran into it again. He might have kept going, but the SUV was losing this fight, and after the third try, smoke was pouring out of the engine and the Mercedes didn't move again. Lee got out of it and ran toward Tony. He had a gash on his forehead, he was limping, and he was holding his left arm a little strangely, but he was alive.

The Mustang was moving. "Get to the building," Lee said. It wasn't going to be a contest, Tony saw. They were running wounded, and he could hear the sound of a Boss Mustang engine revving up behind them.

Then there was the noise of tires squealing, and a horn sounded across the parking lot. Something large and red slammed into the Mustang, plowing it into the now-defunct SUV. The Mustang's engine died, and its lights went out.

Tony tried to shout for the occupants of the red car not to get out, but a white-faced Amy was already opening the passenger door and being quietly sick on the pavement. "We went very, very fast..." she said in a small voice.

She was cut off by the sound of an approaching police car. When it stopped, Danvers and Elson got out and observed the twisted wreck of metal. "You were right," Danvers was saying. "It did make sense to come here instead of the apartment."

"See?" said Elson. "The kid was right. Anything weird in this city winds up here eventually."

"Is it...?" Geetha Danvers began, then stopped. The car wasn't moving. Not exactly. The car was...changing. It shimmered and twisted, and there was a naked man curled up on the pavement.

Tony had never been much of a car guy, but he was a guy guy, and the man getting to his feet, aside from the fact that he looked like the loser in a bar fight, had to be the most gorgeous man he had ever seen. Tony's gaze settled where it was inevitably going to. Damn, he thought. This guy did remind him a little of Ryne Cyratane.

Elson had aimed his gun, ordering the man to get back down on the ground. Danvers had hers in hand, but looked as if she didn't know quite what to do with it. Amy was staring at the man, looking similarly confused. And Vivi...well, Vivi had gotten out of her car and was headed straight into the thing's arms. Tony felt an irrational stab of jealousy. It was going to have her, and it had promised him...

It had promised him death, he realized, as Jack Elson opened fire. It promised everybody death, in the end. The kelpie turned its attention away from Vivi, and screamed at Jack. The scream mostly sounded as though it came from a human throat but there was still somehow the undertone of the roar of an engine. It started to run, in a path Tony saw was going to take it right through a bespelled and unresponsive Amy. Without thinking, Tony called the Come to Me variation and shoved her out of the way at the very last possible second to keep her from getting trampled.

The world spun and started to turn black. He felt Lee grab him just before he hit the pavement, then heard a small, but powerful voice behind him screaming, "What the hell is going on?"

Brianna.

The kelpie-man shimmered and twisted again, began to grow hairier and taller, as it fixated on the girl. Tony's memory replayed a scene from the night before.

 _...that's _all_ I was asking for,_ Brianna was saying. _Well, that and a pony. But really I wanted to spend more time with you, because you said you would teach me, and I couldn't wait any longer to learn how to become a wizard..._

"The bridle!" Amy screamed. And Tony saw the silver bridle, the fabled source of the kelpie's power, and realized there was fuck all he could do about it, as the thing that now become a jet black pony charged at an enthralled Brianna.

Who raised both hands and screamed out a string of syllables ending with the words, "Bad horse!"

As the rest of the world tilted sideways and finally shut itself off, the last thing Tony saw was a flash of silver flying into the girl's outstrectched hands.

* * *

**V. Victory Lane**

His memories of the next few days went something like:

Darkness.

They'd won, somebody was telling him. They'd all come rushing through the doors of the studio, brandishing various weapons at the last minute, only to find the battle was already over. That was good, thought Tony. Hooray for our side. He wasn't sure _what_ they'd won, but he was really, really glad. He was just going to...

Sleep.

Food.

Henry Fitzroy standing over him threatening various unspecified but somehow terrifying things if he ever tried anything like that again...

Sleep.

Food.

Arra, her cats, and the cast of _Darkest Night_ trying to communicate the secrets of the universe to him via a splashy musical number with lyrics in a language he didn't understand...

Sleep.

Lee stroking his arm, looking into his eyes, whispering, "I love you, you stupid..."

Sleep.

Food.

Brianna chewing him out because he'd had the bad manners to sleep through her ninth birthday party...

Sleep.

Food.

Vivi Kelley, showing him a set of silver car keys for some reason, and CB with her, looking annoyed as he tried to explain something Tony wasn't quite...

Sleep.

Food.

A talking kangaroo and Dale Earnhardt, Junior asking him the way to Mason's dressing room...

Sleep.

Food.

Amy giving a blow by blow account of her ride with a stunt driver. "...And then we were going the wrong way down a Tim Horton's drive-thru..."

He tried to say, "Been there."

"...on two wheels!"

He tried to say, "You win..."

Sleep.

Food.

An argument with Henry about getting out of bed and going to work that he realized he'd lost before it even started...

Sleep.

Shirtless Lee.

Sleep?

Kissage by Shirtless Lee.

Blink.

Shirtless Lee. Still in his room.

"You're awake," said Lee.

"Oh good," said Tony. "I was going to be very disappointed if it turned out you were like the kangaroo and Dale Earnhardt, Junior."

Lee blinked, then climbed into bed beside Tony. "I can almost definitely assure you I'm not." He ran a hand down Tony's chest. "Listen, there's a very upset romance writer in your living room, who suggested I give you some incentive to stay in bed just a while longer."

He rolled over, and kissed Tony's lips once more before he moved down Tony's body, his mouth beginning to follow the path his hands had just taken. As Lee tormented a nipple with tongue and teeth, Tony decided it couldn't hurt to stay in bed just a little while longer.

By the time Lee's mouth finished exploring every inch of skin below his waist, and was working on his swollen member, Tony had pretty much resolved to never, ever leave the bed again.

Lee's mouth.

Lee's hands.

Lee's cock.

Lee's voice, telling him how much he loved him.

Lee's body, curled up next to his, snoring gently.

Sleep.

And the next day, it was time to go to work.

* * *

They'd taken Tony's car. Lee was going to have to find time to shop for a new one soon, but he'd declared he wanted nothing to do with motor vehicles for a while yet.

Lee insisted on helping Tony out of the car and was keeping one arm around his waist to support him as they walked into the studio.

"I can walk under my own power you know," Tony said. "Now who's treating who like the damsel in distress?"

"Oh shut up," said Lee. "You nearly killed yourself trying to save the day again. Taking care of you is a job for Actorboy."

Inside the studio, Mason Reed was being interviewed by the television news about the events of two days ago. Tony hadn't yet had a chance to check with CB to find out what their cover story was this time, but he was amazed at how the actor managed to make a battle he'd seen only the last few second of seem all about him.

Tony realized that several pairs of eyes were now on them, and Lee Nicholas' arm was still around his waist. He started to pull away. The actor didn't let go.

"But..." said Tony, indicating with his eyes the assembled members of the press.

"Oh, for crying out loud," muttered Lee. And when the world tilted this time, Tony realized it was because Lee was tipping him backwards, home-from-WWII style, and giving him a very passionate kiss.

He was too distracted to notice just who started the applause, but he'd put money on it being Amy.

When it was over, and Tony was a little unsteadily back on his feet again, he grinned at Lee. "So..." he said.

"So..." the actor replied.

"Oh my God, Lee, do you realize what you've just done?" Adam Paelous, the show's 1AD, was standing next to them, shaking his head. "You've stolen Mason's thunder. Now he's going to be impossible to work with for the rest of the day. But thanks for that, anyway. Pavin owes me twenty bucks now. Oh, and Tony, CB wants to see you in his office."

"So, is Tony your boyfriend, Lee?" Brianna Bane was standing behind him, arms folded over her chest, her expression suggesting she was about to cough up a hairball. "I keep asking _him_ , but he won't say."

Lee looked at Tony. "Well, he is if he wants to be," he said in a conversational tone that also included the entire room.

Tony smiled. "He wants to be."

"Good," decreed Brianna. "But next time, warn somebody when you're about to do any kissing stuff. That's just gross."

Brianna walked Tony to CB's office. "So, how's your pony?" he asked her.

"Which one? The one from my mom, or the one from my dad?" Then, realizing he'd been out of the loop for a while, she said, "Oh, _that_ pony. That one's not exactly mine anymore."

"It's not?" said Tony.

"No. See, Vivi talked to me about some of the stuff you were talking about--only she explained it in a way that made sense--with great power and great responsibility, and also having the determination to succeed, which she says I've got more than enough of. And I realized that my big responsibility was to be a wizard. To be really, really good at it. Even if it means sitting through the boring stuff. Keeping that kelpie thing was going to take up way too much time. It was stupid. You know it didn't even understand what it was doing when it was drowning people?"

"So where is it now?" Tony asked as they entered Chester Bane's office.

"Good morning, Mr. Foster. I trust you're feeling better," said CB.

Tony nodded.

"I also trust you now understand the significance of your role as my daughter's teacher."

Tony nodded again. Brianna had talent. Probably lots of it. As he and CB hammered out his new schedule, he still couldn't shake the feeling that he might be agreeing to play Obi-Wan Kenobi to a modern-day Anakin Skywalker. A black, female, Canadian Anakin Skywalker with more determination in her little finger than the eventual Sith Lord probably had in his entire body.

Then Brianna and CB had explained what exactly happened with the kelpie's bridle. In the end, he was impressed. There were maybe three people in the world CB's younger daughter might listen to. Two of them worked for her father, and the other now owed the Bane family very, very big.

* * *

**Afterward: Rookie Season**

Tony did the beer-from-the-fridge trick and summoned Lee a cold one as onscreen the Tim Horton's Ford Fusion moved to the inside to pass the red Budweiser car. He was trying to pay attention to the announcers, to learn what was involved in this sport besides going around in a circle turning left really fast for three hours. It was hard to do with his lover stroking the back of his neck in that way that made his senses tingle.

"Vivi Kelley, the Nextel Cup rookie lately out of Canada, has a chance for a good finish here," one of them was saying. "She says she's driving her very favorite car."

Tony snorted. He bet. He wondered just what NASCAR officials would do if they ever learned just how many versions of the #93 car were actually the thing that lived in the lake behind the garage.

He hoped they never did. Running on the NASCAR circuit kept the kelpie busy, and the attention of the fans and the press fed its need for human adoration. Vivi made sure human beings were off the menu as far as the rest of its diet was concerned. They should be okay as long as she kept the bridle safe, wherever and whatever it was now. Amy was still frustrated that none of them had thought to go for the keys back when it was still the Boss 9.

It was never evil, as it turned out. Tony didn't think he'd ever forgive it Mouse, but a long talk with Henry helped him better understand that the thing had been acting according to its nature. Which didn't mean he wouldn't work to destroy it again if he had to.

Vivi's gender alone had likely gotten her more press attention than most rookie drivers ever received outside of the winner's circle. She was having a good year, and he'd already seen her on TV telling her story, thanking her sponsors, answering the inevitable question about her relationship status.

She always answered the same way. "Let's just say right now my relationship is to racing," she'd say, flashing a smile at the camera. If that meant more than most people got out of it...well, her private life was none of Tony's business.

"What's up?" Lee asked, breaking into his thoughts.

"Oh, I was just wondering how something that can mimic an entire automobile so completely and could easily grasp the basics of restrictor plate racing had so much trouble with the idea that people asphyxiate if you keep them under water too long."

"I don't know," said Lee. "Sometimes the incredible things seem to come so easy, and it's the stuff that should be simple that takes a long time to figure out."

Tony sighed. "Men and cars, huh?"

"Yep," Lee was stroking the back of Tony's neck again.

"And in answer to your original question," Tony said. "Nothing's up. Yet. But I'd like to see if I can change that."

They had to find out who won the race from the sportscast the next morning.

 

 

 


End file.
